4. Range of commands. Most spreadsheets nowadays let you easily move or copy numbers. But there are less common but very useful commands. Symphony, for instance,[instance,] lets you flush out formulas behind calculated cells so you can regain available memory space.
5. The ability to do what-if tables. The best spreadsheets won’t just tell you what your profits would be if your costs increased by x amount. They’ll also let you calculate for a whole range of numbers around x, automatically creating a table.
6. Easy consolidation of figures from different spreadsheets. That’s no small matter if you’re trying to come up with a profit and loss statement for a twenty-division company. Lotus 1-2-3, unlike some rivals, lets you consolidate an unlimited number of divisions.
7. Natural order of recalculation. Cells must influence the numbers in other cells in a precise sequence if some calculations are to be accurate. Natural order of recalculation helps you automatically control that sequence.
8. A useful macro language. Macros are combinations of commands that you can program into your computer to reduce the number of keystrokes and save time. A macro language systematizes these shortcuts.
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He could use 1-2-3 in the future, moreover, as a data base with up to 32 fields and up to two thousand records, and it did all[all]the basic search and sorting that you’d have in other data-base systems. At the time I talked to him, the names and addresses of investors—receiving quarterly income reports—were still stored on an Apple. Scharf was waiting for the right word processor-mailer to come along to work with the 1-2-3. Then the massive retyping job for the address lists would be worthwhile. With space for two thousand names, 1-2-3 would be much more useful than just a small filer. It wouldn’t be just a primitive record-keeping system with limited capacity.
Meanwhile, for Scharf, graphics was a snap. “If I send out a thirty-page bid, I do three or four graphs with it,” Scharf said. “We have a selling job to do with both the potential corporate leasees and the potential inventors. The presentations are complex, and the graphics come in very handy. We use line graphs and bar graphs showing the expense of lease payments versus mortgage payments if they went out and mortgaged the properties conventionally. The minimum terms of the leases are usually twenty-five years; it’s a huge numbers-crunching job, and we try to simplify everything as much as we can. I come up with the figures on the spreadsheet part of 1-2-3. Then I tell what I want on the graph. Maybe I want to make a line for the rental income, interest expense, depreciation, or taxable income. So I select the appropriate columns on the spreadsheet. Then I push ‘V’ for ‘View,’ and I can see my work instantly as a graph. If I don’t like it, I can quickly redo my calculations and look at the graph again.
“And 1-2-3 offers a tremendous range of printing options. You can specify how many rows you want per page. You can tell if you want border lines separating some numbers and titles of columns. You can tell if you want a header—can indicate the subject on each page.
“The printout can be in any one of several type styles on dot-matrix machines. Or you can use a daisy wheel with its own typewriter-style print.